


Detention

by HenryMercury



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - The Breakfast Club Fusion, Apparently there's a tag for:, Detention, Gen, Not entirely unrelated to The Breakfast Club, This isn't quiiite that but it started somewhere similar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-03
Updated: 2015-05-03
Packaged: 2018-03-28 19:04:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3866302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HenryMercury/pseuds/HenryMercury
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A sketch of various AtLA/LoK nerds in detention.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Detention

**Author's Note:**

> There are uni essays I really don't want to be writing right now, and that's about all the explanation I can offer.

The tired old desks creak in protest as another detention class settles in for the afternoon. Mai is already bored. She slips her pocketknife from her sleeve and starts carving into the table's edge. Mai recognises the girl who takes the seat beside her up the back as the sister of the cute new boy from her class, Zuko. He has a scar on one side of his face, wears a My Chemical Romance t-shirt, and seems as generally non-plussed about the world as Mai feels.

"Hey," she asks the girl, "is it true your brother broke into your last school at night and set it on fire?"

The girl huffs. "It's true that our last school was _tragically_ burned to the ground," she says sharply. "But the suggestion that Zuzu could both plan and execute such a thorough attack is nothing short of hilarious. No, all credit for Ba Sing Se High must go to _me_."

Wood dust starts falling into Mai's lap as the table is eaten away by her knifepoint.

"Oh," she says. "Cool." She thinks she may have found her next friend—she hates this place, and she'd be lying if she said she'd never considered arson; someone with the drive to carry it through is something of an inspiration. The fire girl's brother _is_ still cute though, even if he's less accomplished at destruction of property.

Mai's attention is drawn to Zuko when he appears in the doorway, letting out an indignant shout. The sound forms a shrill harmony with the shrieking of Katara, the captain of the girls' water polo team. When she isn't half-drowning people in the pool, though, Katara is usually in the library. She's almost always the first to raise her hand in class, and Mai has never seen her in detention before.

"It's all his fault!" Katara is shouting, pointing at Zuko. "It's completely unfair that we _both_ have to be here!"

All the while, Zuko is accusing her of the same. Mai sits back, watches the show and tries to figure out whether there's anything to be envious of; Katara and Zuko are glaring at each other, but it's still unclear whether they want to eat each other's faces or just rip them off.

Mai turns back to Azula. Ty Lee, the cheer captain, is settling into the seat just in front of her. Mai doesn't see Ty in detention very often either; the only instance she can think of involved the cheer squad and the girls' hockey team having some kind of fight. It might have been that someone stole Suki's favourite eyeliner.

"What'd you even do to get detention on your first day?" Mai asks.

"She skipped history to hang out behind the art block," Ty Lee pipes up with an answer before Azula even opens her mouth.

"And what did _you_ do to get detention?" Mai asks Ty Lee, suspecting she already knows the answer. Ty Lee is looking at Azula kind of like the sun shines out of her butt. Her butt, quite specifically.

"I skipped history to hang out behind the art block," Ty Lee sing-songs. "It was totally fun. Wasn't it, Azula?"

Azula affects boredom, but Mai thinks she might actually be going a little pink in the cheeks. "Sure it was," she says. She reaches down into her bag and pulls out a nail file, devoting her attention to that rather than the people around her.

The Beifong kids, unlike some of the others here, are very much a fixture in the detention classroom. Kuvira strides in and takes a seat right at the front, because she likes to aggressively stare down the teachers who are assigned to watch them. She's wearing her usual leather jacket, and a shirt that says _ROCK EMPIRE_ , and Mai can't tell whether the faint bruising on her knuckles is from today's fight or yesterday's.

Huan, who cuts every class that isn't art, trails moodily behind her. "I'm just saying, The Metal Clan's new album is totally original. You should just give it a shot—"

"I don't care about sellout metal bands that don't have anything new to offer the genre," Kuvira rounds on him. "I've grown up. You should try it some time."

Huan huffs. "Well, at least I'm not dating my brother."

"Baatar is _not_ my brother—and neither are you. I'm fucking _adopted_. Leave me alone."

The not-brother in question stumbles through the door with his science textbooks spilling out of his backpack a second later. He takes a seat next to Kuvira. Mai knows for a fact that Baatar is not required to be in detention right now. She looks away as he leans over to kiss his not-sister. She still hears the noise of disgust that Huan makes.

The teacher arrives at this point, and takes her seat at the front desk. She gets out a newspaper and places it between herself and the students.

Korra arrives fifteen minutes late with a black eye that might just match Kuvira's knuckles, and a goofy smile on her face that might just match the hickey blooming on her neck. She takes the nearest seat and starts texting furiously—no doubt messaging her girlfriend, the shiny class president Asami Sato. Sato is all glossy lips and purple-shadowed eyes and smiles that many boys have found distracting over their high school years. Rumour has it that Sato's distracting smiles remained when she tased sleazy boys from the Equalist College down the road right in the nuts. Mai (unfortunately) hadn't witnessed the incident, but Ty Lee had apparently really been impressed by what she'd seen. The boys, whoever they were, hadn't pressed charges, so Mai has no doubt they deserved every volt Asami gave them.

The sawdust falling into Mai's lap is starting to really get annoying, so she takes out one of her textbooks and starts slicing shapes into that instead. Her uncle will replace it all anyway, probably without letting anyone know it was his niece who'd done the damage. He'll just write it into the school's budget and give her another set of detentions—if that; it's not a good look, apparently, for the Principal's niece to be seen to have misbehaved.

It's funny because it's so rare that anyone really sees anything that Mai does, let alone cares, let alone bothers to keep track.

Sokka waltzes in a full hour late with a greasy paper bag that reeks of fried chicken in his hand. He immediately leans back in his chair, letting it swing on its hind legs, and aims a spitball at the ceiling.

"For god's sake," the teacher grumbles at the front of the room. "All of you, shut up." More quietly, but not nearly quietly enough to be private, she adds, "I'll kill Su for making me take this gig."

Once Coach Beifong's newspaper is lowered, Kuvira takes her opening and glares at her (adoptive) aunt.

Beifong just raises an eyebrow at her and puts the paper back up.

There's relative quiet for a few minutes more after that; Azula has filed her nails into sharp points and now appears to be filing the points away. Ty Lee has been watching the process with notes of alarm and relief that Mai wishes she hadn't noticed and refuses to think any more about.

Sokka has just about finished his chicken—literally an entire chicken, Mai suspects, because he's been at it for a while now and he doesn't eat patiently—so the chewing, lip-smacking sounds of his fast-food appreciation are winding down at last.

"Psst," comes a stage-whisper from the window, which is open just a crack. "Katara."

Mai looks over and sees Aang, the hyperactive junior who skipped at least two grades and as a consequence is notably younger than Katara, on whom he has an enormous crush.

Mai watches the change in Katara's face as she sees Aang's head poking up and then realises the detention room is on the second floor.


End file.
